Kenji Mizoguchi - Ugetsu monogatari (1953)

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In the civil wars of 16th century Japan, two ambitious peasants want to make their fortunes. The potter Genjuro intends to sell his wares for vast profits in the local city, while his brother-in-law Tobei wishes to become a samurai. Their village is sacked by the marauding armies, but Genjuro’s kiln miraculously survives, and they and their wives head for the city. However, Genjuro soon sends his wife Miyagi back home, promising to return to her soon, and Tobei, in his keenness to follow the samurai, abandons his wife Ohama. Meanwhile, a wealthy noblewoman, the Lady Wakasa, shows an interest in Genjuro’s pots, and invites him to her mansion.







Ugetsu is inspired by stories by Ueda Akinari and Guy de Maupassant. It is Mizoguchi’s most celebrated film, regarded by critics as a seminal masterwork of Japanese cinema. Ugetsu is a ghost story, in which a peasant craftsman in Medieval Japan is undone by his greed. Typical of Mizoguchi’s films, Ugetsu is politically oriented toward the ways women suffer at the hands of men; also typically, it features stunning visual arrangements and meticulously orchestrated long takes, as well as obfuscating elements like fog and silence.
Ugetsu won the Silver Lion Award for Best Direction at the Venice Film Festival in 1953. The film has made multiple appearances in Sight and Sound magazine’s top ten critics poll of the greatest movies ever made, which is held once every decade. In 2000, The Village Voice newspaper ranked Ugetsu at #29 on their list of the 100 best films of the 20th century.






In the provincial village of Ohmi, in the era of the Countries in War feudal war, Genjuro (Masayuki Mori) leaves his wife Miyagi (Kinuyo Tanaka) and son in order to undertake a dangerous trip to the city where he can profit from the widespread shortage by selling his pottery. He is accompanied by his well intentioned brother, Tobei (Eitaro Ozawa), a peasant farmer who dreams of providing a better life for his wife Ohama (Mitsuko Mito) by becoming a samurai. Encouraged by their successful venture, the brothers return with loftier ambitions that quickly turn to greed. During the evening of the kiln firing, the village is attacked, and the two families are forced to abandon their homes, traveling by boat to the city of Omizo, where they can sell the undamaged pottery. Along the way, they encounter a lone, wounded boatman, who warns them of pirate ships in the vicinity, and Genjuro decides to leave Miyagi and their son behind for their safety. While selling pottery at the open market square, an enigmatic young woman named Lady Wakasa (Machiko Kyo) approaches Genjuro and orders several articles for delivery to the Kutsuki mansion, and immediately captivates him. Tobei seizes the momentary distraction to run away with their profits and purchase a samurai outfit, attempting to join the army of a local feudal lord. The abandoned Ohama, in a vain attempt to find her husband, encounters a band of pillaging mercenaries, and is violated.






Ugetsu Monogatari is an exquisitely realized, serenely composed allegorical film on love, greed, and betrayal. Kenji Mizoguchi’s seamless fusion of poetic realism and surreal mysticism creates a rarefied atmosphere that is paradoxically beautiful and austere, redemptive and tragic, symbolizing Genjuro’s coexistence between the physical and supernatural realm - a reflection of the duality of the human soul. Chronologically, the protracted feudal war surrounds every villager with the pervasive specter of death. Episodically, Mizoguchi uses an overhead shot of a woman dressed in a soft, fluttering white kimono to introduce us to the transcendental Lady Wakasa. Genjuro passes through a series of open and screened spaces at the Kutsuki mansion, creating a visual dichotomy of physical reality and ethereal shadows, before his formal introduction to Lady Wakasa. Inevitably, the tortured Genjuro is forced to confront his beguiling temptress - a metaphor for the dark passion of the soul - and returns to his fractured, haunted past: a diligent, simple potter, inspired by the love of his devoted wife. Strictly Film School






Japón, siglo XVI, época de guerras civiles. Dos habitantes de una aldea sueñan con un futuro mejor. Genjuro, hábil alfarero, quiere ganar dinero vendiendo potes para darle una vida mejor a su mujer. Su vecino Tobei tiene el descabellado deseo de convertirse en un samurai. Cuando el ejército invasor se acerca a la aldea, saqueando las cosechas, esclavizando a los hombres y violando a las mujeres, las dos familias deciden partir en busca de fortuna.


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